Conan The Barbarian Gets The Strangest New Movie Ever
If you’re a fan of Conan the Barbarian, you’re undoubtedly familiar with some of the most defining aspects of Conan’s mythology. Things like machine guns, cars, and dog-faced people—the usual elements that go into a good Conan story. Or at least that’s what the creators of She Is Conann associate with the famous barbarian.
What Conan’s never been—at least until She Is Conann came along—was a time-traveling lesbian.
To say that the trailer for She Is Conann is bonkers is insulting to the meaning of the word bonkers. The French import—a gender-swapped re-telling of the Conan mythos—premiered in European theaters last year and makes its U.S. debut on February 2, 2024. A U.S. trailer for the film was released on YouTube yesterday, and it is mind-blowingly weird.
She Is Conann is a surreal reimagining of Robert E. Howard’s Conan The Barbarian by avant-garde filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. The trailer introduces us to Conann, an orphan enslaved by the Barbarian Queen and taught to fight. So far, excluding the gender switch, we’re still within the realm of a recognizable Conan story. From there, however, things quickly take a sharp left turn into Weirdsville.
Conann—we assume the extra “N” is to make it look more like Ann—is visited by a different version of herself from ten years in the future. Future Conann is just one of several Conanns from across time played by multiple actresses that Conann prime encounters. While the original Conan stories would often take place at different eras of the warrior’s life, those different versions never interacted with each other directly.
As cool as it is to see Conann fight what look to be Nazis at one point, it’s also completely mind-boggling.
A hellhound by the name of Rainer—the above-mentioned dog-faced person—guides She Is Conann‘s protagonist through time and space, where she encounters many futuristic contrivances the original Conan never ran into. As cool as it is to see Conann fight what look to be Nazis at one point, it’s also completely mind-boggling.
For anyone not in the know, Conan the Barbarian is a character created by pulp writer Robert E. Howard in 1931. Conan was a powerful yet cunning warrior living in the fictional Hyborian Age of Earth. Conan had a cult following until a popular Marvel comic book series in the ’70s and the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger made the character a household name.
While the main Conann in She Is Connan wields a sword, that’s pretty much the only aspect of her that’s recognizable as Howard’s infamous barbarian.
Throughout his fictional travels, Conan has been many things: slave, mercenary, thief, pirate, and even at one point, King. What he’s never been—at least until She Is Conann came along—was a time-traveling lesbian.
Genderswapping famous male characters is nothing new, but usually, the female version retains all of the characteristics that made the character memorable in the first place. While the main Conann in She Is Connan wields a sword, that’s pretty much the only aspect of her that’s recognizable as Howard’s infamous barbarian.
But then again, what’s the point of reinterpreting a character if you’re just going to copy exactly what’s been done before?
The movie currently has a 91 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with one reviewer calling the film “scandalous, intimate, and wholly bizarre,” remarking that the movie was “not for the faint of heart, weak of stomach, or morally pious.” There may not be much in the trailer for She Is Conann that screams Conan the Barbarian, but with a review like that, it sounds like a movie worth checking out, regardless.
She Is Conann hits theaters in the U.S. on February 2.
